


The Ones We Love

by theclockiscomplete



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Doctor, Other, Post-Episode: s09e02 The Witch's Familiar, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 03:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12739800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclockiscomplete/pseuds/theclockiscomplete
Summary: Clara and the Doctor had no time to reconcile or even fully process the effects of Missy's near-successful plan to drive her oldest friend straight over the edge and into her arms. Months spent together after the events of last Christmas have done little to hone their abilities to have a real conversation about trauma, but this was a near-catastrophic event that cannot have happened without real emotional fallout. Neither of them is okay. Neither of them can say it out loud.





	The Ones We Love

**Author's Note:**

> I swapped medications, and have received the newfound ability to focus. Also my emotions turned back on. So, celebratory fanfiction.

The Doctor threw the lever to spin them out and away to safety, casting a furtive glance at Clara. She caught them looking and hastily turned away, arms wrapped tight around her jacket and clinging to the leather like a reassurance.

  
The rotor groaned, lights flashing.

  
It took the Doctor everything they had not to run away, to deal with or avoid their emotions in solitude. She didn't let them, usually. She came after them, invaded their space, inflicted her fiery kindness on their hearts and molded them back into shape with the sheer force of her will. They did the same for her.  
At this point, the two of them were sharing techniques-- learning where the pieces fit to put each other back together. This wasn't the first time they'd both escaped with damage to fix.

  
But this was nearly too much for the Doctor to process. The shame, the grief, the relief, the _shame_. To walk away now was to leave them both broken in a way they weren't sure either of them could come back from. Not whole, at least. Not together.

  
And whether or not Clara could do without them, the Doctor's hearts were sealed. They could not lose her.

  
Only seconds had passed, but the Doctor felt as though they had been standing in thought for years. Depending on where the TARDIS was in space in time, they may well have been. They glanced over at her again as she stood before one of the bookshelves in the near-believable attempt to appear enthralled by them. Her shoulders were forced into something resembling relaxation, her arm shifting to hide the fingers white around her ribs.

  
Those few cues might not have been enough for them Before, but the Doctor was a quick study and they told them that their Clara was having a similar internal struggle. Relief loosened their lungs even as the stakes became clearer. They could fix this. Had to fix this.

  
The Doctor's hand hovered over a keystroke, but they lowered it almost immediately. Taking her to another adventure was out of the question. Not with their fingertips still smelling faintly of the pricks of blood that had welled up at the removal of the wires attached to her temples, not with her face unable to create even a facsimile of a reassuring smile. To have her personhood stripped away and her best friend mistake her for their most hated enemy...

  
Would Clara have known, if it had been her on the outside?

  
Last time she'd narrowly avoided death, she'd pulled the Doctor to their knees with her skin still smelling of sweat and smoke and blood as soon as the doors slammed closed, and had proceeded to snog them until their bottom lip bled and their scalp ached. The Doctor let her, of course, because she needed it and there was nothing they wouldn't do for her. They ached to be able to fill that void again, but this time they had caused it.

  
The taste of her tears, they remembered, had stayed with them for weeks.

  
No adventures, this time, and no talking per usual. The Doctor considered for another moment, and then made their move. They stepped away from the console, making a deliberate amount of noise on the stairwell to announce their approach. Clara's head shifted a fraction in acknowledgement, but nothing about her relaxed.

  
The Doctor stood closer to Clara than they knew she liked and for a moment the two of them breathed in sync as her presence warmed them. As always, she was like standing next to a solar flare, all heat and light and energy. As always, she was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with aesthetics.

  
The Doctor lifted a hand and touched their fingertips to hers where they clung to her ribs, waiting. She stiffened almost imperceptibly, bracing herself for a toppling of the precarious atmosphere, but the Doctor simply stood and waited until a breath finally trickled out from her shoulders and her fingers unlatched themselves to rest lightly on theirs. They squeezed them once, gently, and then turned and strode down the hall.

  
Clara stumbled in surprise before adjusting her steps to keep up as they wound down several corridors and hallways. She took a breathless second to form a sharp retort in case they ever turned to view her fractured expression with those anguished eyes, but her thoughts refused to cooperate. Perhaps, she reasoned, it was because she never really expected them to broach that trust.

  
For now, all the world was their hand in hers and the back of their silver head leading her forward, forward.

  
They finally came to a stop outside an unassuming metal door. The silence pressed around their bodies as the last echoes of their footfalls rounded the corner and disappeared, leaving behind only the incessant hum of the ship. Clara suddenly felt nervous as the Doctor reached out his free hand for the panel that would open it, still studiously avoiding her face. Clara knew they were up to something, but she'd taken their hand and followed them here in spite of herself, so there was nothing to do but follow them through the door and towards the sound of water.

  
Clara looked round as metal gave way to soft sand and a cool breeze tugged strands of hair across her dry eyes and set jaw. To an inexperienced eye, the tall trees, black sand, and setting sun could look like Earth.

  
Clara's eye was far from inexperienced.

  
The water between the trees was an odd lavender against the sky, and the scent on the breeze was completely foreign and resistant to category. Clara dropped the Doctor's hand and they stopped, facing away from her.

  
"What are you trying to do here?" Though only ten minutes could have passed since they'd left Skaro, her voice felt thick with disuse. She forced down the lump, watched his shoulders. Ten minutes since wearable technology. Twenty since she'd stared down the barrel of a Dalek gun in the hands of her best friend. An eon. If she'd learned nothing else during her time on the TARDIS, the relativity of time was an impossible lesson to forget. She zipped her jacket higher against the chill.

  
The Doctor tilted their head up, eyes closed. Their gravity dragged Clara's thoughts back to the present. Watching them, she was seized with the desire to reach up and touch that jaw in the way she often did now that she knew how much they liked it, but she held back. She wasn't sure yet whether she was going to need to forgive them or not, for whatever was about to happen.

  
"I'm in the mood for a nap," they said suddenly. Clara blinked, caught off guard, but she didn't miss the twitch of his fingers by his side. They looked like they were grasping for air. They started walking again.

  
Watching them go, it occurred to Clara for the first time that perhaps their resistance to facing her wasn't entirely for her sole benefit. She hesitated, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She reached up and brushed her fingers against her temple. The skin there was still sensitive, but there was no other indication of what had happened to her.  
Unbidden, she remembered the Doctor's anguished and blurry face in proper light she hadn't thought she'd ever see again, felt their shaking fingertips ghost against the sides of her head as though terrified of hurting her. Hurting her more.

  
She'd nearly died. She was used to that. Depending on who was asked, she sought it out. But she'd nearly died at the hands of her very best friend, convinced that the dalek before them had killed her. They had been nearly beyond reach, for her. Because of her. They wanted to trust Missy so much.

  
Missy.

  
Clara's eyes stung as her vision blurred again, and she scrubbed a hand across them, using her sleeve to mop up the smudged makeup she left behind. Then she crossed her arms and followed the Doctor's footsteps in the sand.

  
The Doctor leaned against a tree and looked out over the body of water stretched across the horizon, eyes unfocused and blank. They'd walked away with the hope that Clara would follow, but their mind was now long past that thought and replaying the murderous, helpless rage that had so nearly caused them to end Clara's life. Their eyes fluttered closed again. To feel shame twice in such a short time-- they'd be a pro in no time, at this rate, if it didn't kill them first. Clara's tear-stained face felt burned into their retinas, the way the recent imprints of naked fear had distorted her relief, the way her glistening cheek had pressed against the now-trembling hand that had nearly killed her.

  
There had been no time to confront this. No time for anything more than her bracing her hands on their arms as they extracted the nodes as gently as they could, tenderly brushing away the blood from the tiny holes left behind. A shared stare as each evaluated the other, evaluated themselves, but those few seconds were the only luxury either of them got as the walls began crashing around their ears.

  
Though they couldn't hear her over the sighing trees and lapping waves, the Doctor felt the warmth of Clara's presence encroach on their personal space, and they opened their eyes, hestitating before turning to face her at their side. She stared resolutely at the water, but they didn't fail to notice the fresh redness around her eyes.

  
Movement to their left caught the Doctor's eye; a hammock had seemingly materialized between two trees nearby. It rocked slowly, empty and slack in the breeze. Apparently the TARDIS had tuned into their comment regarding the nap. He sent up a silent thanks and shrugged out of his overcoat and hoodie, holding them silently out to Clara. She tore her eyes away from the water and looked at them warily, wearily.

  
In spite of the time the two of them had been spending together over the last few months, this gesture was more raw than anything previous. They were there in their thin, soft t-shirt and their plaid trousers, as bare as she'd ever seen them. It was an offering that had very little to do with the temperature.

  
She sized them up, taking her time lingering over the pale skin of their arms, the way their limbs didn't quite wrinkle in the same way their face did. She'd never exactly forgotten that they weren't human, but things like this reminded her that the creature wearing this deeply human face with its human expressions was ageless and would forever be in many ways unknowable, incomprehensible. But this she understood, this outstretched coat, this steady gaze, this repeated, slight twitch of their free hand. It was simple, so simple, to narrow her focus to only them-- simple for them both. A practiced ease.

  
She stepped in close and lifted her chin to lock eyes with them. A moment passed where both of them studied the other's faces, still haunted by their earlier mutual despair, as though overwriting their memories of the anguish that had ravaged each of them earlier.

  
At last, the Doctor tilted their head in acknowledgment of Clara's acceptance and swept the coat around her to settle on her shoulders. She poked her arms through and took their hoodie under her arm, and then their outstretched hand in hers.

  
The Doctor ambled to the hammock with calculated slowness, giving Clara all the time in the world to break away, tell them to stop crossing lines. She didn't. The Doctor lowered themself slowly onto the ropes, managing to make it look easy as the lattice spread beneath them to take their weight.

  
Clara set the hoodie near the top of the hammock and stepped forward between their knees. She let go of his hand and threaded both of hers in their soft silver curls. The Doctor's breath caught and held, and it was their turn to look up in order to take her in. The sunset was cacophonous behind her. Their lips parted, the expression on their face difficult to decipher. "The temperature is colder for the natives," they said hoarsely.

  
Clara shushed him and tugged gently on the hair caught in her fists. The Doctor's eyes fluttered closed with a hitch of breath, but her terrified face was waiting in their mind's eye and they had to open them again. Staring up at her, they saw in her face the same struggle, watched as her features began to finally show signs of collapse.

  
They reached up between her arms and spread their fingers along her jaw, cradling the side of her neck and drawing her down into the hammock with them. She folded willingly, both of their personal space rules forgotten in one of their rare moments of need. Moments, the Doctor reflected, that were becoming worrying in their increase.  
Clara's knee sought balance on one of the Doctor's thighs as their bodies shifted horizontal. When her head rested against their shoulder, they could reach her shoes with minimal strain and they gently pulled them off and set them on the sand beside the swing.

  
Clara's uneven breaths puffed against the Doctor's throat, as warm as her double-jacketed arms resting against their sides and her legs curled up on their thighs. The Doctor's arms wrapped loosely across her back, teasing the collar of their coat just below her hairline. They wondered if she could feel their heartsbeat.

  
After a moment, the Doctor's fingers brushed softly against Clara's hair, then threaded reverently in it and stroked down to their jacket collar and back up again. One of their feet was planted in the sand and they began to gently sway the hammock back and forth as Clara's hand drifted from their shoulder to fist their t-shirt gently.

  
There would be time for discussion and resolution, time to talk or not talk about events and their significance. But for now, there was only the slight creak of the hammock ropes, the soft sounds of wind in the not-trees, and the water a few meters away. The Doctor and Clara Oswald rocked slowly in the eternally setting sun, and within minutes were sound asleep in each other's arms.


End file.
